A while back I posted about flashing the PERC on my Dell PowerEdge T420 to IT mode to use it as an Unraid server.

That setup ran well for a few months. But duty called.

As I had mentioned before, we’ve been in the process of moving away from Blue Iris and standardizing on Wisenet Wave VMS. That transition actually started about two years ago, and since then, we’ve migrated most of our campuses over.

Except for one.

This remaining campus has the largest camera deployment at just over a hundred cameras. Which meant we needed something more capable to handle the load.

There wasn’t budget for a brand new server. So I made a decision. I’d donate my T420 to the cause.

What happens to Unraid? For now, nothing. It served its purpose, and I do plan to bring it back in a different form later.

Why Donate the Dell PowerEdge T420?

There were a few reasons behind the decision:

  1. The Dell PowerEdge T420 is loud. It’s an enterprise server sitting in a rack… inside my home. My wife, is not a fan (pun intended).
  2. It’s not exactly energy efficient. Running it 24/7 at home didn’t make much sense long-term.
  3. It belongs in an MDF or IDF. Somewhere it can live alongside the rest of the infrastructure: switches, patch panels, and other servers.
  4. Most importantly, it can serve a much more critical role there than it ever did in my homelab.

Hardware Specs

  • Dell PowerEdge T420 5U Tower Server Chassis
  • Intel Xeon E5-2400 v2
  • 48GB ECC DDR3 RDIMM (upgraded from 16GB)
  • 256GB SSD (installed in place of an optical drive)
  • 4 x 8TB Western Digital Purple Pro
  • PERC H710 hardware RAID

Software & OS

For this deployment:

  • Ubuntu as the server OS
  • Wisenet Wave as the VMS.

The operating system is installed in a dedicated SSD keeping it isolated from the recording array and making maintenance or recovery easier.

Storage and RAID

I installed a 256GB SSD in place of the DVD drive and used it for the OS and VMS.

For data, I went with 4 x 8TB Western Digital Purple Pros configured in RAID 6.

I chose 8TBs mainly because it's a good compromise between time to rebuild and capacity. I didn't want to sacrifice the server going down because it couldn't rebuild on time.

This was also a reason why I went with RAID 6 instead of RAID 5 or RAID 10 even if both will give me either more capacity or better performance.

RAID 6 can survive two (2) drive failures so, it buys time for the old server and reduces risk during rebuilds, which can take a long time on larger arrays.

As budget allows, I can expand the array by adding more drives, increasing retention without needing to redesign the system.

Process

The first step was installing Ubuntu on the SSD. This was a quick and straightforward process.

After installation, I updated the system and confirmed that both the OS drive and RAID array were detected:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
lsblk

Once both drives were visible, I created a /data directory on the RAID array and mounted it. I also made it persistent by adding the UUID to /etc/fstab:

sudo nano /etc/fstab
UUID=xxxx /data xfs defaults,noatime 0 2

Next, I downloaded and installed Wisenet Wave:

wget https://updates.wavevms.com/hanwha/40221/linux/wave-server-6.0.1.40221-linux_x64.deb
sudo apt install ./wave-server-6.0.1.40221-linux_x64.deb

Then I verified that the media server service was running:

sudo systemctl status hanwha-mediaserver

Once confirmed, I accessed the web interface at:

http://ipaddress:7001

From there, it was just a matter of finishing the configuration inside Wisenet Wave:

  • Set the RAID array as the primary storage location
  • Created admin and power user accounts
  • Added cameras to the system

After adding a few cameras, I monitored system performance to confirm the server was stable and handling the load as expected.

Ubuntu htop monitoring CPU usage, load average, and processes on a Dell PowerEdge T420 running Wisenet Wave VMS
Initial load test with a handful of cameras. CPU and load averages remained low, indicating plenty of headroom for scaling.

Takeaways

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how this project turned out so far.

We were able to implement a cost-effective solution with repurposed hardware.

My trusty Dell PowerEdge T420 is now back in an environment where it belongs.

Our security and campus operations teams now have a more reliable system they can depend on.

And more importantly, we are one more step closer to a standardized VMS solution across all campuses.